Chapter 12: The Integration of the Americas and Oceania with the Wider World- Vocab Flashcards
Atahualpa
An Inca ruler who had a dispute with his brother Huascar in the early 1500s. Pizarro exploited their conflict, took over Cuzco, and killed them (sparing Atahualpa until he delivered gold to them).
Audencias
Spanish courts in Latin America.
Brazil
A region in eastern South America (known for its brazilwood trees) that was given to the Portuguese after the Treaty of Tordesillas in 1494.
Conquistadores
Spanish conquerors (of Mexico and Peru in the 16th century).
Criollos
Creoles, people born in the Americas of Spanish or Portuguese ancestry.
Doña Marina
Woman born in central Mexico in 1500 who became fluent in Maya, Nahuatl, and Spanish, and helped Cortés with communication, information, and diplomatic services (protecting him from ambushes, negotiating, having his son, etc.), but her people believed she was a traitor.
Encomienda
System that gave the Spanish settlers (encomenderos) the right to compel the indigenous peoples of the Americas to work in the mines or fields.
Engenho
Brazilian sugar mill; the term also came to symbolize the entire complex world relating to the production of sugar.
Epidemic Disease
huge increase in diseases in a specific area; killed many of the cultures/populations of indigenous peoples of the Americas after European contact.
Francisco Pizarro
1478–1541 C.E. Spanish conquistador whose military expeditions led to the fall of the Inca Empire.
Fur trade
A North American industry where agents, adventurers, businessmen, and settlers connected the interior or North America by a chain of forts and trading posts. Europeans traded manufactured goods for fur from Indigenous peoples, and the hides went to Europe.
Hacienda
Large Latin American estates.
Hernán Cortés
1485–1587 C.E. Spanish conquistador whose military expeditions led to the fall of the Aztec Empire.
Indentured Labor
Servants who migrated from Europe in the hopes that they would be free after 7 years of work; an indentured labor trade was started in the 17th and 18th centuries to American colonies. Many died of disease or overwork, and many only found marginal employment.
James Cook
1728–1779 C.E. British explorer, navigator, and cartographer who served in the British Royal Navy. Famous for his expeditions to the Pacific Ocean in the eighteenth century.
Malintzin
1500–1529 C.E. Nahua woman who acted as interpreter and advisor for Hernan Cortes.
Manila Galleons
Sleek, fast, heavily-armed Spanish cargo ships that traveled from Manila to the Mexican coast, exchanging Asian luxury goods for silver.
Mestizo
Latin American term for children of Spanish and native parentage.
Métis
Canadian term for individuals of mixed European and indigenous ancestry.
Mita system
An Inca practice of requisitioning draft labor (used to recruit laborers for gold mines) where Spanish authorities annually required 1/7 of each village’s male population to work for 4 months in the Potosí mines.
Motecuzoma II
1466–1520 C.E. Aztec emperor at the time of Hernan Cortes’ invasion.
Nahuatl
The native tongue of Doña Marina and the principal language of the Aztec Empire.
New Spain
The Spanish name for Mexico.
Peninsulares
Latin American officials from Spain or Portugal.
Potosí
City in the central highlands of modern-day Bolivia that became the world’s largest silver-producing area after silver was discovered in 1545.
Quinto
The one-fifth of Mexican and Peruvian silver production that was reserved for the Spanish monarchy.
Smallpox
A disease that touched off devastating epidemics in the Western hemisphere starting in 1518.
Taíno
A Caribbean tribe who were the first indigenous peoples from the Americas to come into contact with Christopher Columbus.
Tenochtitlan
Capital of the Aztec empire, later Mexico City.
terra australis incognita
Meaning “unknown southern land,” it refers to land that European explorers had speculated must exist in the world’s southern hemisphere from the second to the eighteenth centuries.
Tobacco
A plant cultivated in Virginia and Carolina first observed being smoked by Native American societies for ritual, medicinal, and social purposes. It’s addictive due to nicotine, and was widely adopted among Europeans for social pleasures.
Virgin of Guadalupe
A national symbol of Mexican faith (catholicism & indigenous beliefs) and nationalism; a popular shrine where the Virgin Mary appeared to peasant Juan Diego in 1531.
Zacatecas
Site of Spanish silver mine in the Mexican north where laborers went voluntarily as their home villages experienced conquest and disease. Ovr time, they became professional miners, spoke Spanish, and lost touch with their birth communities.
Zambos
Latin American term for individuals born of indigenous and African parents.
